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GOLDSTREAM NEWS GAZETTE
Wednesday, June 20, 2012 - GOLDSTREAM
EDITORIAL
NEWS GAZETTE
Penny Sakamoto Group Publisher Kevin Laird Editorial Director Jim Zeeben Editor Oliver Sommer Advertising Director
The Goldstream News Gazette is published by Black Press Ltd. | 117-777 Goldstream Ave., Victoria, B.C. V9B 2X4 | Phone: 250-478-9552 • Fax: 250-478-6545 • Web: www.goldstreamgazette.com
OUR VIEW
Extra-curricular ruling pointless L
ast week’s Labour Relations Board ruling that B.C. teachers’ withdrawal of voluntary extra-curricular services such as coaching, band concert and graduation ceremony organization, and field trips did not constitute unlawful strike activity was not surprising. For the B.C. Public School Employers’ Association to ask the LRB to rule otherwise was patently ridiculous and showed how far out of touch with reality the provincial body is. Such “volunteer” activities by teachers have never been considered mandatory. Parents and administrators have come to expect them as a major part of the education and school experience for children. But the association was clearly out of line in targeting such action by the union. On the other hand, the B.C. Teachers’ Federation’s trumpeting of the decision – it also included an order to restart parent-teacher interviews and attend school-based team meetings, among other duties – shows the union is scrambling to maintain any kind of bargaining power in this lopsided labour negotiation. With the ordeal dragging on through the entire school year, and expected to continue once the 2012-13 year starts in September, as the two sides get back to bargaining, it seems the patience of everyone involved has worn thin. Since teachers were ordered back to work after a short-lived strike, many educators – as fed up and frustrated as parents – have found creative, if not defiant ways to do their jobs, and participate in voluntary activities despite being encouraged not to do so by the union. No one has won in this whole affair, not the province, not the public and most of all, not students. The end result is that teachers still feel undervalued, the B.C. government knows it has an unhappy education workforce and many families are mad at both sides for using their children as pawns in a labour stalemate. We hope the summer holidays provide a time for both sides in this dispute to cool off and seriously try to rethink how to achieve labour peace in difficult economic times. No one wants to go through it all again this fall.
What do you think? Give us your comments by email: editor@goldstreamgazette.com or fax 250-478-6545. All letters must have a name and a telephone number for verification. The Goldstream News Gazette is a member of the British Columbia Press Council, a self-regulatory body governing the province’s newspaper industry. The council considers complaints from the public about the conduct of member newspapers. If talking with the editor or publisher does not resolve your complaint about coverage or story treatment, you may contact the B.C. Press Council. Your written concern, with documentation, should be sent to B.C. Press Council, 201 Selby St., Nanaimo, B.C. V9R 2R2. For information, phone 888-687-2213 or go to www.bcpresscouncil.org.
2008 WINNER
Sorry about that, anyway Here comes the nightmare of I did that many years ago, with everybody who writes for press or some justification. In my daily newsbroadcast: getting a fact wrong. I paper column, I made a joke of a have done it a few times in the past, complaint against an erring printer. and now I have done it again. I proposed to write Printerproof My statement in a colProse, which would go as umn published on June follows: You you just just 13: None of the directors write write everything of Peninsula Co-opereverything twice twice. ative live on the West An angry printer retaliShore. ated by showing up with Fact, as stated in a leta clipping of one of my ter from the co-op: Two excessively personal-expeof the directors of that rience columns in which I co-op do live in the area had made 23 repetitions of we call the West Shore: the word “I,” if I remember Ron Gaudet in View the number correctly. G.E. Mortimer Royal and Mel Hernblad I got into a mild arguThink about it in Metchosin. ment with a co-worker Reason for the error: I about one of his errors. I took the word of a ususaid he had misspelled the ally reliable source. One must never name of a woman named “Aggie,” do that. One must double-check whom we both knew. It came out in everything. the paper as “Assie.” No use to say “Sorry.” This makes “That was your mistake,” I said. the apologiser feel better, but apolo- After this lapse of time, I don’t know gies don’t cut it. what made me so self-righteous. What I should have said: no direc“No, it was a printer’s error,” he tors of the co-op live in Langford, said. although many Langford people are I was stubborn enough to go to co-op members who buy gas at the the composing-room, where all co-op’s service stations in Langford. the copy was stored as written. In the long-ago days of hot type, It turned out that I was right. My when a printer had to read your friend had in fact written her name copy and set it in type on a Linoas “Assie.” type machine, you could blame the I like to think that I kept my printer for errors. mouth shut about my trifling dis-
covery, and never mentioned it again. Maybe I did exactly that, because my co-worker and I remained friends. But maybe I blathered on about it. I often marvel at the memory of the dumb arrogance I have displayed in the past, and wish I could have a reincarnated re-run around the track, and achieve smarter decisions, or make a new set of errors. I also marvel at the kindness other people have shown me. I once interviewed distinguished Second World War General Mark Clark, and on the way back to the office I lost my notes. I phoned General Clark and asked whether I could talk to him again. Sure, he said, come on over. I have not yet achieved that level of tolerance and understanding, but I’m working on it. My half-benign, half-hostile feeling toward the Peninsula Co-op’s current policies has not changed, but I’m sorry for the factual error. I feel compelled to say that, even though apologies are futile. G.E. Mortimer is a longtime columnist with the Goldstream Gazette Editor’s note:You can read a corrected version of G.E. Mortimore’s last column on our website, Goldstreamgazette.com, under “Opinion.”
‘One must never do that. One must double-check everything.’